One option in North America is serial recreational vehicle rentals. In the land of origin of serious motorhoming, we could easily choose to simply not buy, either here in NZ or in the US or Canada. We could just rent an RV and drive around then rent the next one and the next one.

What would that look like cost-wise? The cost of renting a 30-foot (9 metres) RV in, say, Texas for 35 nights is about USD 6000. That’s just $170 per night, comparable to hotels and transport by other means.

This includes 100 miles per day (160 km) which is about what we would expect to drive. The small problem with this is that we would have to return the vehicle to its point of origin. If we had no time restriction, 3500 miles could have us to New York and back, a lovely little trip. But 100 miles per day, every day is not really our idea of a holiday.

And if one-way rentals were unlimited (unfortunately, they’re not) a mere 2200 miles would get us to either Quebec or Vancouver, depending which way we wanted to go. Add 3000 miles between the two Canadian cities and another 2200 to return to Austin, Texas and we have a lovely little round-trip of some 7500 miles. We’d probably want to be doing that in our own vehicle.

That doesn’t mean that serial recreational rentals are not for us. It just means that we need to be a bit smarter in the way we construct them.

Recreational Vehicle Rentals Companies

If you’re in the market for RV renting, these companies can help you out.

At the time of writing (2014) El Monte RV has a one-way special available that involves picking up a 32-foot Class A motorhome from Miami or Orlando and delivering it to Villa Park in Illinois. That could be quite interesting except we might run the risk of being stuck in Villa Park.

Alternatively, Moturis RV has a very good looking special moving a from LA to Boston or New York for just $40 per night. This is exceptional value and would be a great way to get us from one side of the continent to the other.

Come to think of it, one-way RV trips would be rather like house-sitting, except the house is moving!